..when bullshit matters

English teacher

Ng’s wedding dinner was like a reunion dinner for primary school friends and also secondary school friends. The best thing of all, I met my primary school English teacher, Puan Lor, as we fondly called her. I saw Keith spoke to her first and then I gathered Lingesh, his wife Meg, and Wong and together we approached the teacher.

Upon seeing us she quickly stood up to welcome us and I can see she was very very very very delighted to see us…. As we are all grown up now. She still remembers The rest of them except yours truly… maybe because I’m so much fatter and I looked very different from then… standard 6. She still stays in Intan Baiduri and teaches in the same old alma mater of ours, SKSJ. Despite being offered a promotion twice in her career, she turned them down just to remain in the once quaint town of Selayang West…. selayang jaya.

Megala said she met her just a few week ago at bakery near Kiddo Mart. Pn Lor asked of Wong’s sister… as the Wong’s are some of the smartest and brightest pupils during our days. She also did her math and said it was some 18 years since we left the school. Gees. I almost cried. I can see that she was very glad to see us.

Sadly we didn’t had the chance to take a group photo… With all the primary classmates there – R. Devindran, Keith, Mee Hoon, Soo Lan, Yeng Yeng, May Lee….. and the lot. Oh, also Ng…. and also his bride Mei Leng, who is a year our junior. Gosh… and the ji muis – Rosalind….erm who else?

The teacher also told us the pupil these day are not so proficient in English unlike us in those days where most of us converse in English. Today, teaching English is harder and she has to resort to learning some Tamil and some Chinese dialects to scold the naughty and noisy kids. English proficiency had definitely dropped tremendously over the years. She also told us she’ll be retiring next year at the age of 56. Man, time flies.

She also spoke of Puan Faridah, our secondary school gangster discipline teacher Cikgu Aznam’s wife. She said Pn. Faridah also agreed with her that English standards these days dropped tremendously. She also related to us how nice were the good old days when teaching was way easier than today.

Hmm… Anyway, she left before the dinner ended and we missed the chance to take photo with her…. Hopefully there will be a chance again as we know where to find her.